Congress’ Pell deal a win for students
Adeal struck by Republicans and Democrats in Congress has paved the way for students to use federal grants for short training courses. This is a rare example of sensible, bipartisan policy. As a new year begins, leaders of both parties should work to pass the legislation — together with a better plan to pay for it.
The Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act would expand the range of programs eligible for Pell Grants, which are currently used by roughly 6 million undergraduates to help pay for college. The bill allows students, for the first time, to use this aid for programs as short as eight weeks. These are typically courses that train students in specialized skills, in fields ranging from welding to truck driving to health care. The beneficiaries would be low- and middle-income adults seeking to change careers or gain credentials for higher-paying jobs.
Up to now, the idea of expanding Pell Grants to shorter courses has failed over concerns about sending taxpayer dollars to low-quality providers. The framework negotiated by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Republican chair, Virginia Foxx, and ranking Democrat Bobby Scott addresses this by requiring that all programs demonstrate a completion and job placement rate of at least 70%, with graduates earning a median income of at least $21,870 plus the cost of tuition within one year. Eligibility would be limited only to training courses offered by accredited higher-education institutions, a priority for Democrats, but those institutions could include for-profit and online providers, as Republicans have advocated.
Committee members backed the compromise last month by 378 — greatly boosting its chances of attracting broad support in both houses of Congress. Considering the legislative impotence of the current Congress, that’s one reason for lawmakers to make it a top priority as they return to Washington. Beyond demonstrating that bipartisanship isn’t dead, it would also help more low-income Americans obtain practical, career-advancing credentials at a time when employers face shortages of qualified workers and confidence in traditional higher education has plummeted.
In one respect, though, the plan can and should be improved. The measure is projected to cost a modest $160 million over five years. The committee wants to offset this by banning institutions with endowments larger than $500,000 per student from receiving federal student-loan money — a policy that would affect roughly 50 to 60 of the country’s wealthiest schools. This would harm students by preventing them from using aid they’re eligible for at the school of their choice — and might actually cost money rather than save it, because undergraduates who enroll in selective institutions are also the most likely to finish their degrees and pay back their loans in full.
Lawmakers are right to seek cuts in the bloated student-loan system to fund short-term training, but there are better ways to go about it. Capping the size of graduate-school and parent PLUS loans and streamlining the government’s public-service loan forgiveness program would be fairer, simpler and far more economical.
The bipartisan push to help lower-income Americans gain skills and get ahead was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal legislative session. In 2024, Congress should use that momentum and deliver.